Poems
A Tale for our Time: The Market Trader’s Stones ♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪[prose poem and song]♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪
ONCE-UPON-A-TYME, in an insignificant town of little renown, there was a commotion caused by heaven-knows-what. Like a whirlygigsome wind, it came and went and ruffled feathers, blew some fences down, turned some stuck things round, brought some haughty faces down, set some wheels in motion all around. But let me start at the beginning…
It all began at the market which, in that small place, was every day and every stall had been the way it was from further back than any could recall. Until a stranger came to town, dressed in clothes which made folks look askance (he was no stranger, though, to this reactionary dance). Before he’d even made a move or opened up his mouth, alarm bells jingled in their minds with peals of fear — his very presence near them seemed disturbing, made them miffed. Feeling undermined, they primed themselves defensively and clenched their gnarlsome fists.
To my Unborn Grandchildren [poem]
Please never call me Grandpa!
I don’t deserve that ageist slur.
(Although I realise your wrath
may be incurred because of my
refusal to be placed inside that box).
Please never call me Grandpa!
That label you won’t pin on me;
We’re just conditioned socially to use
this word. It’s more a form of cosiness
to check you’ve lined up all the dots.
The Monk’s Habit [poem]
My monk’s habit dropped down from
my dessicated, wizened old potential
corpse with some indecent haste.
No wonder! For no longer can I bear
to be a captive in this virgin territory,
lean and starving, hesitantly chaste,
wingless (in a tantric sense), my fecund
fluids being wasted as they languish
uselessly in glandular “disgrace”.
Demolition Man [poem]
Strip me!” said she.
“Oh I will,” said he.
“Rip them off me!” said she.
“Oh, the thrill!” said he.
But it wasn’t to be as she thought.
Then he gave her a look
which she couldn’t understand.
She was waiting for his hands
to start to rob her of her clothes.
And then he dropped the bomb:
“I’m Demolition Man
It’s not what you suppose.”
“But you told me that you love me.”
came the puzzled voice
“And indeed I do,” said he.
“So why,” said she, “will you not start
now with our time of debauchery?”
Stroboscopic Alchemy [poem]
If words were flags and metaphors were flashing lights
then all you’d see would be a mass of semaphore and
stroboscopes from little me (now situated on the edge
of what is euphemistically known as Crusoe’s Galaxy).
So far am i from anchors in the sea or other elements
of what would usually be regarded as stability, I float
with wings which came from Icarus [but suit me more].
Those things which are regarded by the iceful hoardly
maidens of today as being of worth, I have none at all.
For gallantry and wordplay are not valued in the main
and all i have is journeys to the moon and salty tears
& sweetsome meadow mattresses for lazy afternoons
in summer rain of tantric love — electric fingers search
in lovejuiced walls which wrap themselves around my
probes as if within a glove (for this is where they true
belong) and all the world (if seen as an agglomeration
or accumulation of its cells & atoms energies unknown)
is one vast throbbing wave which dreamed itself into
some form our puny drownful brains can understand;
and these are just a handful of the things which i can
give to you, if you will walk with me a little way (please
tell your mother that i’ll not be bleeding you astray).
For silver and fool’s gold i do not own, if taken in the
normal mundane sense of 3-D lucre’s ragged paper trail.
But in my heart there lives an alchemy machine which
processes the fountains of my soul into etheric heaps
of wealth which only can be seen then held by hands
of those who’ve bid themselves goodbye — i’ll know
their mindset when I’ve looked them wholly in the eye
& kissed their inner thighs with more than just my lips.
So let me know if off the edge of Crusoe’s Galaxy you
wish to leap. There’s nothing left to lose. And what’s
the worst which could ensue? The partial death of U.
That’s all! For those who seek to save their lives will
lose them anyway. But those who LOVE to sacrifice
themselves upon the altar of abandoned ego’s hope
will never go astray. So have you seen now what my
flags are signalling & stroboscopic lights are flashing
through this frozen aeon’s slender branchlike tendrils?
There’s nothing here to own or grasp within your hands.
But better to have breathed in nectar’s sweet invisibility
than believe that earthly ersatz property will set you free.
.
.
© Alan Morrison, 2016
What we Honor [poem]
Oh, by the way, there’s something I must nowly
say to you: That lovely face of yours on which
you lavish so much slavish concentration — e.g.
mirror-time and paint — will not be here for long.
You’re just a temporary Graphical User Interface
(or GUI) within this world for someone you forgot.
What’s more, no matter how you try, you’ll never
stop that face from being worm-food in the earth.
The beauty which you think you see will surely rot.
It’s coming soon; you’ll then learn life’s true worth.
And with a cheeky smile I say the person who you
think you are’s the one who you are definitely not!
And if that seems too riddlelike for you to handle
at this tender time of day, then crack the code so
you will understand & know yourself without delay.
Sharpened Soul [poem]
Last night, in my delirium (avec un peu de fièvre),
delicious though it weaved my swollen words,
I dreamed and saw with calm uncustomary clarity
(according to the winsome voice I swoonly heard)
why I had come to sojourn in this cloistered world
a tiny while (my weeping heart not merely style).
A Temporary State of Love [poem]
If you’re hoping that I’ll sort you out and mend your life
and take away your strife and bucketful of baggage
like it’s broken up and chockly full of empty holes
you’re waiting for a man like me to fill (my ancient role),
I’ll be your therapist or bosom friend but not your lover.
Treasures in my Attick [poem
when i was a tiny child i constantly begged
the spirit i called god to render me invisible
but here i can report to you s/he never did
then when all my molecules had multiplied
and made me huger than i ever was before
i realised that now i am (invisible, that is)
A Certain Temporariness [poem]
It’s just a stone’s throw from the birth day to the box.
That precious stone I keep inside my pocket to remind me
that I’m only me (my life a gift) [a vagrant] temporarily.
I was not ‘this’ or ‘that’ or any other thing before my birth.
To say I was would show I had not grasped the nature
of the ego’s time-bound status in a life upon this earth.
The Naked Troubadour 